We are living in hard times and difficult, painful and unpalatable decisions have to be made. In Jack Thorne’s new play a Labour Council in an unnamed working class town has to achieve £64millions savings over three years and decides they will have to close down a day centre for the elderly and disabled. The closure puts the town in the national spotlight and immediately, a petition is drawn up to save it, which thousands sign. The deputy (the personable Paul Higgins) wants to do what is right and fair.
An old Labour leader (Tom Georgeson) argues that the Labour Party doesn’t fit into the modern world and has lost its believers and reminds him that a council’s duty is not to the Party, not to the country, not to the working class, but to the town. The strange physical exercises director John Tiffany imposes on the cast are an off-putting distraction. Tommy Knight as the deputy’s precocious 16-year-old son has the best laughs.